This Week in Startups - TikTok data security, the Chinese surveillance state, Amazon running out of warehouse workers | E1490

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

Today we kick it off with a discussion of BuzzFeed’s reporting on TikTok, and we debate if there are real risks to worry about here (2:04). Then, we discuss Amazon forecasting it will run out of workers in some of the cities it operates in (37:16). Finally, we talk about some of the ways we are reducing our consumption (43:55). (0:00) Jason and Molly tee up today’s topics! (2:04) TikTok: BuzzFeed News investigation revealed 8 internal TikTok meetings showing that US data has been repeatedly accessed from China (11:40) Odoo - Get your first app free and a $1000 credit at https://odoo.com/twist (12:52) Hot Takes: should the US ban TikTok? (19:51) Coda - The All-in-one doc for teams, get a $1,000 credit at https://coda.io/twist (21:04) NYT suggests the Chinese government is investing massively in surveillance (36:09) AdQuick - Visit https://adquick.com/twist and mention TWIST to get $1000 off your first campaign. (37:16) Amazon leaked memo from 2021 said the company was in danger of running out of people to hire in warehouses by 2024 (43:55) Ways Jason and Molly are reducing their consumption (51:10) Coming up later this week

Hey, everybody, it's Wednesday on this week in startups. That's right. Today, we're going to kick it off with a discussion about TikTok and surveillance. Molly and I get into a bit of a debate about the risks and what we should be worrying about. And I have a message for employees of TikTok here in the U.S. He does. It's a little bit spicy. And then we're going to talk about labor.

Apparently, Amazon is forecasting. It will run out of workers in some of the cities it operates in. We're going to talk about reasons and solutions like we do. Yeah. We talk a little bit about our addiction and then lowering. our carbon footprints and our consumption footprints and this whole new genre of startups that are doing, what is it called? Circularity.

Circularity. It's not the singularity. It's a circularity. It's really an interesting concept. It's like an OK Boomer segment with Molly explaining this stuff to me. It's going to be a great show. Stick with us. This week in startups is brought to you by Odu.

Odo is a fully customizable and fully integrated suite of business apps that let's you build and scale your stack as you build and scale your business. Your first app is free forever and right now Odo is offering $1,000 off your first implementation pack at Odu.com slash twist. That's ODO.O.com slash twist. Coda. Cota is the all-in-one doc for teams. If you've got a stack of niche workflow tools or if you're buried in docks and spreadsheets, Coda is the doc that brings it all together. Startups can get a $1,000 credit at coda.io slash twist. And AdQuick.

If most of your advertising dollars are going to digital ads, it's time to diversify. Out-of-home advertising like billboards offers low-cost, high-value reach. AdQuick makes it easy to plan, buy, and measure all in one place. visit adquick.com slash twist and mention twist to get $1,000 off your first campaign. Okay, everybody, apparently we're going to need to talk about TikTok again. Yes, still again. There has been, of course, a bunch of reporting, a bunch of speculation. What does, what do Chinese authorities have access to?

What does bite dance have access to when you're using TikTok? TikTok, of course, claims that all user data, is on U.S. users is stored in the U.S. And of course, TikTok continues to expand its influence in the Western world. It's up to 1.6 billion monthly active users, which is a lot. It has cemented itself, I think, as the competition to Facebook, Twitter, even YouTube, which is very unlike YouTube, actually created a new product, the Shorts product, to compete with TikTok and keep users on its platform.

And so on and so forth. Now, let's talk about TikTok's influence in the U.S. And whether it is or is more is as influential or even more influential in American politics than Facebook. Facebook. TikTok, of course, is a Chinese company operating in the U.S. and worldwide. China, as a reminder, basically blocked Google and Facebook. So as Jason has pointed out many times, this is an asynchronous relationship. TikTok operates here.

American social networks do not operate in China. Yeah, it's one way. There's no reciprocity here. We are not allowed to have our apps in China. Yep, they are behind the great firewall. U.S. lawmakers have tried to insist that TikTok has to keep its U.S. data in the U.S. and TikTok has said that it makes every effort to do so. However, there is some recent reporting from BuzzFeed News based on internal company audio from 80 leaked meetings. 80. 80 saying and it seems that the bulk of these meetings were about how to do this and efforts to do this in the wake of the timing in this article is a little unclear but it seems to be in the wake of the Trump administration preparing executive order saying that TikTok would have to be banned and they were like oh crap okay we're going to do this.

Yeah, we did a little saber rattling. Trump did a little saber rattling with something I agree with them on and then you remember the U.S. version said they would move the data to oracles cloud or something like that. Microsoft was going to put in a bit. to buy it, et cetera. At the same time, India banned it and banned other Chinese apps because they're smart and they understand trade for some crazy reason. We're not letting them in here.

But what really stuck out to me here was all of the back doors. So if you read this story, basically all of the tools and all of the monitoring and the management systems of TikTok were written by the Chinese parent company.

The people in the U.S. sound like bumbling idiots who have no idea how any of this works and where the data is and who's seeing it. And the people at Oracle and the consulting firms that work with them are kind of saying, listen, we're just giving you raw hardware.

It's up to you to put the software on it, which means they have no insight. And you have to wonder, developers are very principled people. This is 80 meetings. So there are 80 meetings into this process. And if they were doing two meetings a week, this is like a year's worth of meetings or so.

because that's what I would think the cadence would be here. Somebody is very concerned about this internally. Enough that they would risk taping all these meetings and leaking them. That to me seems like a major red flag, like major, major red flag. The fact that some principled person who is not going to get any financial gain from doing this

and could be in the crosshairs of the Chinese government, which is no joke and the companies and could be sued for damages all this kind of stuff and who knows it could be one of the consultings at the consulting firms

or it could be Oracle it could be anybody in these groups but I have a feeling it's somebody inside of TikTok itself here in the US I'm going with Facebook spy if I'm being honest

and here's why Facebook spy how would they get into the meeting well maybe they went to work for Facebook or maybe you know we're planning to I don't really know But here's what I do.

Here's what I do now. Okay. One. And this does, although I have defended BuzzFeed reporting. Because they have it recently. Yeah. And they do. And they have done some good reporting.

This story as it unfolded, right? Like this story as it begins makes it sound like, oh crap, that all US user data has been flowing freely and that's just that. And all these tools have a backdoor built into them. The end. Yeah. then as the reporting unfolds, it becomes clear that these meetings were all about attempting to secure U.S. user data, which is a good thing. Yes.

That that turned out to be a slightly difficult process. Very difficult. Very difficult. But in the recordings, the vast majority of situations, and I'm reading from this story, which is way down in the middle, quote, in the recordings, the vast majority of situations where China-based staff accessed U.S. user data were in service of Project Texas's aim to halt this data access, meaning that they were testing. Yeah.

In service of making sure that that wasn't happening. Right. So that's like buried way down halfway through. Okay. And most of the, most of the recorded meetings focus on TikTok's response to these concerns. I don't know why someone leaked this. I do think that there is some concern about whether TikTok. clearly in China you know whether this user data is being accessed in China I also think that the

user data that Facebook and Google and to some extent Twitter but much less are harvesting and using in completely non-transparent ways is equally terrible and it feels to me a little convenient that these stories are all of a sudden starting to appear at the moment when like meta's growth has been revenue growth, at least revenue has been flat for however long now, when this is like the real competitor. Revenue has been okay. They're still throwing a lot of money. Revenue has been great, but the stock price is flat. Yeah, and the earnings have, well, it's been down. Yeah, they lost five years worth of growth. And the earnings have gotten a lot of headwinds because of the Apple changes. That's fair enough. And they also have been investing so much. Yeah. I'm just not. So I'm honestly, like,

I'm having this really weird feeling where I'm just not sold on the red scare that is TikTok when I know that it benefits companies that are frankly just as harmful. From what we can tell so far when it comes to user data. Let me help you become scared. Let me pull you back from this space that you've gone to

because I understand why you're there. This is a dangerous space. Because Facebook has been a bad actor and I have been super critical of the firm as have you, as has anybody who's just objectively looked at their behavior. And so we look at their behavior. too much information. They have been laissez-faire with it. They have done horrible things.

Cambridge Analytica, was that the name of that scandal? I mean, all these different scandals have piled up over the years. So yes, you're correct in not trusting Facebook. But understand the CIA, FBI, Republican Party, etc., as much as they've tried to get their keys to the kingdom, they had to use third-party tools to get that information. They got caught, significant blowback to Facebook, congressional hearings or legislation, the EU stomping on them, Apple then reducing their ability to track their customer base. In other words, their bad behavior resulted in the entire climate of anti-tech and specifically anti-social media here in the U.S. and all that regulation.

Yeah. Now let's go to China. They have unfettered access to all the state, just like they have DEDD's data. just like they have Alibaba's data, just like they remove the CEO of Alibaba, just like they delisted. So when you look at what our government is doing, our government is investigating

and holding Facebook and others feet to the fire, as is the EU to an even stronger degree. China is not, is doing the opposite. They're taking over the companies. They're downloading the datasets. They're incorporating them into their giant mass surveillance.

And you need only look at how they treat their own people, whether it's the Uyghurs or the tracking of anybody who might support any kind of dissent in that country, people who sell books that they don't like in Hong Kong, you know, being sent to the mainland to be reeducated, which means starved, tortured, raped, and beaten. All of those reeducation things that are occurring, all of that activity, it stands in stark contrast to what happens to bad behavior here in the U.S. Should we be stronger? Should we get control of these companies?

Sure, there's arguments to be made. Are we doing it retroactively? Of course we are. That's how, you know, the justice system works. You're innocent until proven guilty and getting proven guilty. It takes, you know, years, if not decades in corporate America. It's imperfect, this system. But we have an existential risk here.

Before we get to the ad, it makes our team so happy to see our partners celebrate big wins, and I'm thrilled to hear about this huge funding round for our amazing partner, Odu. Really great stuff from Julian and the team there, especially in this crazier venture market. So congratulations. And speaking of the market right now, being capital efficient is more important than ever. You know that if you're an entrepreneur. And one easy way for you to cut costs is to run all of your SaaS apps on one platform.

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about all the different provinces, and we'll get into that, and the granularity at which they are tracking their own citizens, they're tracking what apps are on their phone, they're tracking their faces, they're connecting their faces to the apps, they're connecting what they wear, they're connecting where they go, all into a database that the police have unfettered access to, and the police and obviously everybody in the government.

if they're doing that to their own people, the second they had the chance to do it, to their greatest adversary of the United States, they would do it. And all is fair in spying. They will get all of this data from a senator's son or daughter, a senator's husband or wife or cousin,

and they will get the compromise. They will compromise anybody at any time to achieve their goals. And that's why we need to immediately ban TikTok from the United States until such time as they reciprocate and Twitter and Facebook are allowed to be

in their country. Period, full stop. That is my belief. And that is what you should believe too, Molly. As much as you hate Facebook, you must come around to my way of thinking. This is a communist country. You cannot give people

the benefit of the doubt. These are sadistic maniac actors. You should look at them no differently than Muhammad bin Salim in Saudi Arabia who chopped up journalists. These are the same people. I'm not convinced that Palantir isn't in the same camp. Like, I'm just not.

I just spit out by a chart of my chariot. Okay, I can guarantee you Palantir has not dismembered a journalist or put a million people into concentration camps and had them pick cotton in the north of China. Look. Okay? This is a completely different scale.

The, what do they call that? The what aboutism? Is that the term when you conflate two different things that should not be conflated? This is textbook. What aboutism, Molly? We have to get past this. The long list of things we do wrong here in the United States is in no way comparable to genocide or chopping up a journalist.

Palantir could be evil in your mind, but they're not chopping up a journalist. They're not putting a million people in a, in a concentration camp, Molly. Yeah. Okay. I get it. I'm sorry I'm so upset about this, but no, I mean, I really. Every time I talk about human rights, there is a, there is a spectrum here. There is a spectrum.

There is a continuum. There's a continuum. That's the word. Thank you. And there is also manipulation of information to achieve certain names, right? Like, we will take our eye off the ball if we're like TikTok is the great evil. When, in fact, we have metadata. We have so much of the same information collection, data collection by the United States government,

by cell phone providers, by Clearview AI, which is embedded in lots of, police departments and frankly, the fact that we don't chop up journalists now, right? Like, all of this is abstract until it's not. And we're allowing all of the same data collection with the assumption that the United States government, our law enforcement, are all going to continue to be good actors in the world. And we don't know that that is the case. And the United States has perpetrated some pretty serious human rights abuses too on the border in terms of separating children from their parents. Like, I am definitely not trying to downplay the concern of these regimes that are truly evil.

But I'm saying that any regime can end up there and that we're not, and I'm not going to pretend that somehow what has happening at TikTok. And frankly, what these tapes really show from a reporter by the way who like then full disclosure was like, I used to work for Facebook is that TikTok internally seems to be trying really hard to shut off this flow of data. That's what these tapes really say. and to make sure that it's not happening and it's unclear whether it's happening

but that they're trying to shut it off. So like, I don't want to focus so much on TikTok that I ignore. Yeah, we got to pull up that disclosure. That I was a little concerned about as well.

Right, like you see that in there and you're just like, wait. What? She worked in policy. Did she worked at Facebook previously this report? Because we invited her on the show by the way, she was going to come on.

And she's welcome. Disclosure. In the part, by the way, where it says that, again, the vast majority of situations where China-based staff access to U.S. user data were in service of the aim to halt the data access. Disclosure in a previous life, I held policy positions at Facebook and Spotify.

Right. Okay. So she's a policy person who's now a journalist. Policy. Yeah. Policy. I got it. And so your thesis here is she's more, she's more, she's not going to as her Facebook stock. Right. Like, I'm just saying these stories are popping up at the exact time that TikTok represents an existential threat to Facebook and YouTube. And it's, Would like I just I don't there's something There's something about the propaganda part of this

Why would BuzzFeed allow her to do this story? Why wouldn't they assign the story to somebody who didn't work previously on Facebook? Like I mean Wouldn't they just say to her listen It's great that you got the scoop. Yeah. We're going to have somebody else do it

so that your fingerprints aren't on it. I just I mean I think if you do it and disclose it but disclose it at the top of the story. How far down is that? How far down is that? Let's see. I mean, let's see. I mean, I know we're getting into the weeds here,

but I do think that that is very pertinent, what paragraph it's in. Somebody just tell me it's a fifth, sixth paragraph. No, it's like way more. Most people read the first two or three paragraphs in these stories. Okay, so let's say, they don't go below the phone. They don't go below the phone.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And, eight, nine. I mean, it's like 25. It's like 25. It's like paragraph 25. No. Really? Oh, yeah.

That is dark. I mean, I lost how one, two, three, four, five. I mean, if it's not in the first three paragraphs, it's a total foul. It's eight. All right. If it's in the eighth paragraph,

it's a complete fail. That is so dumb one. Whoever the editor at BuzzFeed is, like, you guys need to have a meeting about this. This is two very stupid decisions. One, she should not be allowed to write the story. You should have handed off. Number two, Molly's correct.

This should be up top or you should have put a second journalist on it and then just disclose this in the top. But we're a horrible editorial decision, I think. I mean, look, maybe it's fine. that. But it's just... Well, it just... The appearance of impropriety

is something you have to always avoid in journalism, finance, whatever. He just never want to be in this position. This is why, like, anytime I'm talking about Lyft or DoorDash, you know, I'd say, oh yeah, listen, I still own some shares of Uber if I'm talking about, you know, Robin Hood.

Hey, I still own some shares of Robin Hood, like, you know, specifically. I don't own shares of Palantir. And I sold my Facebook shares, which I think was an okay, seems like an okay trade now when I sold them in the $110, $120 range, I think. I had Facebook shares through a company they bought that I was a shareholder in.

I just didn't want to hold Facebook because I felt bad about it. If you're a startup, having a disorganized team is going to kill your business. You need everybody to be on the same page. And as an investor, I see this all the time. You must adopt a right first culture, especially in this remote world,

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Remote onboarding, super important. And taking meeting notes and Coda has a ton of templates for almost anything you can imagine. In fact, we put our 100 point checklist on Coda. So just go to this week in startups.com slash SC. You can make a copy of this. You can do the checklist yourself with your internal team. You can expand it. You can make it a 200 point checklist.

You could make three sub-checklists underneath some of the important items. So join the Productivity Revolution and sign up for Coda. Head to coda.coma.com. To sign up and get $1,000 in startup credits. Huh? How great is that? But anyway, let's go on to the second story here. Because at the same time this is dropping.

Yep. We find out in the New York Times story that the Chinese government is investing massively in surveillance. There is no doubt in my mind that whatever we know is but 10, 20, 30 percent of what's going on. I think you would agree with that premise if we have, okay. And if you've ever seen or know about the Stasi, have you seen the movie The Lives of Others, highly recommend. This would be a weekend movie you will love. Absolutely fantastic.

When you see the level authoritarian governments go to spy on their own citizens, because that is the only way to maintain control. You will have revolutions and rebels and what kinds of stuff will emerge. Information and squashing things early is sadly the best technique. This New York Times investigation tracked down over 100,000 Chinese governments RFPs. If you don't know an RFP is, that's a request for proposal. This is a document that says, hey, here's what we're looking to buy. So when we did the conference in Miami, we put out an RFP, we're looking for conference producers, I'm sorry, event producers to do three different themed parties, here's what we're

looking for, here's what we want to pay, here's how many people are going, this is our budget, whatever it is. And then people can, you know, you basically send them the RFP so they don't have to ask you 20 questions, you're giving them the 20 answers. Okay, these documents were directly from the government themselves. This is the government putting out publicly on their websites what they wanted because I guess in China, like in the United States, you put these RFPs out publicly so everybody gets a chance to bid on them. So theoretically, the government gets the best price. So a group that watches Chinese behavior, collected these before they were taken down and got them to the New York Times, I guess. And the requests were stunning. The government wanted camera installations in apartment buildings, hotel lobbies, malls,

with facial recognition technology and the ability to match your social user, social media accounts with your phone and with these photos. So an example was all of mainland China's regions use these phone trackers

to map citizens' activity daily. If we allow TikTok in the United States, I can assure you the government knows where any senator, any FBI agent, CIA agent, law authority, Department of Justice, attorney, or any child of a president or vice president or secretary of state where they are.

Now, if you know where the child of the secretary of state is, you probably, or a Navy SEAL, let's say, you're going to know where the Navy SEAL is. And Navy SEALs are a pretty big asset and hits were put out on Navy SEALs. I mean, you actually already know that from Strava. if we allow Verizon in the United States to gather metadata on every citizen with absolutely no transparency or rules, then it is pretty freaking trivial for a Chinese spy to access that information, go to work for that company. Right? Like, I'm just saying that I don't want, I like, as a person who keeps this on my desk as like a Bible, the age of surveillance capitalism by Shoshana Zubov. Like data collection is massively dangerous.

dangerous and terrifying and is happening in the United States and within companies at almost the exact same rate. We'll absolutely concede. And I hope that we never end up under an authoritarian government, but I don't know that we won't. And frankly, I don't want our entire, like, we all are manipulation so far as just like to get us to buy stuff. Now, as scary as the possibility you describe is, Molly, now imagine it's the reality.

Because it is. Right now, the Chinese government has access to all. of this TikTok stuff. I guarantee it. Just, you know, dollars to donuts, 100%. They've got all this. And who knows what else they've hacked. So the question is, do you want them to have this in real time? Yes, of course, they could send spies out to

follow somebody or tell somebody. They could compromise somebody's phone. I'm not arguing for data collection, to be clear. I am not arguing for data collection. Right. Right. I'm arguing against data collection, but I'm also arguing for easy, against easy villains. Well, okay

and I'm not even saying China I don't think they're an easy villain I just think they're a villain like China maybe we don't know if TikTok is we know that there's a lot of protectionism building Americans working at TikTok are traders

any American working at TikTok is a goddamn trader and they should quit now I am 100% debt serious if you work for that company you are a traitor you know there's a reason why we're trying to get them to dismantle the data set and the reason there's a reason Trump did that saber rattling. If you work there, I hope the money is amazing for you to give all of our children's data, all of this control.

And let's not even get into the algorithm and how it's programming our children and the detrimental effect, giving them the ability to turn some dials and make the algorithm show things that, I don't know, maybe talk about things that in America are very divisive. That is already happening on YouTube and Facebook. Of course it is. But you know where I've seen that happen to my child on YouTube? You know what I haven't seen it happen to my child on TikTok? Oh no, it happens on TikTok too. But we're just, the question is as bad as that is, now give the remote control,

give those dials, give that control to the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party. This thing has to be stopped. Now, going deeper into the rabbit hole of this New York Times story, 25. out of the 31 provinces have DNA databases of their citizens. Yeah. Quoting the New York Times, DNA, Irish scan samples, and voice prints are being collected indiscriminately from people with no connection to crime. China is doing massive domestic surveillance on a level not seen in the history of humanity

for incredibly nefarious reasons. We are doing it probably second only to them, and we're doing it for capitalistic reasons. And Europe is pumping the brakes on it. And we're pumping the brakes on it here too, obviously. Some of it is voluntarily and some of it is for competition reasons like Apple versus Facebook. But we really need to get our heads together on this issue. We need to understand that our rival China is a very serious rivalry. India has taken a very savvy approach of blocking these apps.

We need to 100% block these apps forever. Either spin the company out and make it a standalone company and get the profits from it. whatever bite dance wants to do, they can get their shareholders are released, make it a U.S. company with the U.S. board, you know, data. And then, sure, more data controls for U.S. companies. Absolutely. All of that, yes.

And, and, and. I will just not find it. I mean, I'm sorry, I will not find it credible if we ban TikTok and don't reform data collection in the United States. I just won't. I don't think that's credible. I think these two things. I mean, Palantir is doing data collection,

or DNA collection, rather. Like literally letting people upload more. I mean, it's mostly global in nature, but it is happening. Are they doing that, really? Like, opting, people opting into it? No, it's allowing, let's see, it was mostly in, like, they allowed members of the military in Iraq and other countries to upload DNA samples from remote locations to collect fingerprints and DNA evidence.

All right, it's not the same. They're not doing it to the same degree. I'm just saying, I don't find it credible to, like, say this one thing has to go and everything else that the United States companies and our government are doing can remain the same. Oh, I think it's an end. But I think one is a hundred times more. But the more we demonize the one, the less we make it an ant. No, no. It's a very, it offers us an easy out to say we're not as bad as them. And even if it's true, it does offer us an easy out. I mean, I think that's I think. I think if we describe exactly what they have access to and why it's dangerous, then people immediately

go, okay, what about YouTube? And you say, okay, yes, let's let's drill down into what YouTube is doing let's drill down into what Facebook is doing and then you know and YouTube is Google Google has a transparency report on all of the government subpoena as it gets they fight them and they report them right unless there's like one category they don't report on which is i think the FISA ones where they're not allowed to report that a FISA has been given because that would tip off the terrorist but i think that's only for a short period of time and that's like a very a senior level judge can do like a Pfizer thing and it's like a whole panel. It's like it's a real rigor role to do a private subpoena like that or tracking.

But anyway, this is really just and for the people who work at TikTok, shame on you. Shame on you. Like how could you work for a Chinese company that's doing this? That went up a notch quickly. Sorry. I think the people have to own their own behavior. That's it. You know, period, full stop.

I feel the same way, you know, about, I don't. I'm not saying I don't want to see relations occur between these countries. What is the endgame of the of this, of the idea that if you work with the Chinese, your traders. For this specific company, I'm saying, it's reciprocity and the data. So if this, if this country has a track record of stealing data, if these engineers can't figure out what's even going on with the software. And we know that they're tracking.

Our kids have access to their photo album. I mean, this is like a really existential risk. To be fair, they do not have a proven track record of taking this data. I said the Chinese-Times party does. The Chinese Communist Party does. Oh, yeah, yeah, they definitely do. Yeah, that is true. I mean, they were upfront about it.

Like, we're going to do a security. We're doing, they shut DD off and a couple of things. But would you really want Facebook to be operating in China knowing how much data Facebook has about everybody, like two billion people on Earth? Like, I wouldn't. Well, there would be an argument to be made. in the issue of national security. In the issue of national security, I have to think that through. There are two things.

The spread of democracy and information and people having access to free information and free expression, it would be pretty hard to stop Twitter and Facebook from people having this sort of freedom. The thing it would cause if the servers and the data was local is we would, Facebook and Twitter and Google would have to hand over dissidents to be tortured, raped. murdered and beaten. I'm sorry, reeducated. The umbrella known as reeducation in China. So this is why Yahoo left, I think, and a lot of people left and why Google didn't enter. But a lot of companies didn't want to have.

Apple didn't leave. Tesla didn't leave. Like, you are, I mean, how far is this going to go? I'm just saying, watch the these takes because how far is this going to go? We do have deep, deep business relations. I'm sorry, the NBA. It's the data. It can be arguably a wholly owned entity of China at this point.

And so is Hollywood. So like, building. And the manipulation can occur in movies. Yeah. I just think that the data and building widgets are two different things. Like an Amazon basics cable or an iPhone or Tesla is like a different thing than everybody's data and their photo libraries. Isn't economic control, frankly, more powerful in some ways? I mean, look at the capitulation that we have seen to China from the NBA, from Hollywood, from.

And maybe the opposite China towards Apple. And then the opposite, you know. Maybe, but Apple is not out John Cena. Apple's not out here pissing off China either. They've had a pretty contentious relationship at times, like the treatment of workers and the suicide stuff. Like Apple kind of held them to a higher standard. So I think that's the argument people are making in favor of engagement,

is that then everybody's kind of got to meet in the middle on their beliefs. And then there's a compromising nature of them. There's national security. So all these things are going on at the same time. Economics are national security. Of course they are. But the data of all these individuals, like the scale of the data collection is truly, truly terrifying. If I wanted to break a country, I would do it with economics, not data.

You probably use every resource you have, so I don't disagree. I mean, we broke Russia with... Then I don't think you can have the one without the other. I mean, Russia maybe arguably broke us with data or propaganda. They definitely, yeah, they definitely attempted that. Yeah, we'll see if we withstand it. But also we broke them with these sanctions, obviously. Like their economy has really got challenges now and going forward with everybody pulling out of it.

So, you know, it's, I think in a war, everybody will use every option. And I think this is an option we don't want them to have, which is why India said, no bueno with you having the product here in our country. Period, full stop. And reciprocity is a way of kind of enforcing it without banning it. It's just like, okay, there's always an option here. And so it's your question, like, why reciprocity? It's kind of a principal thing.

Hey, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And so we should all play by the same rules. All right. Good time. We'll have to agree to disagree. I'm sorry, I got a little spicy. I love it. Are you kidding?

Get spicy. Well, I don't disagree with any of your points about. Are you cool? No, I'm disappointed in you. Very disappointed in you. No, I'm joking. No, I mean, everybody's good. This is not a.

It's not a. I don't think the... I'm disappointed at you is my favorite. I'm just... I'm so disappointed. I think that this is the thing we have to think about as Americans is when is engagement productive and when is, you know, reciprocity

and holding the line appropriate? For me, if I'm the NBA, I'm thinking, great. You know, if people love LeBron James and, you know, they wear, you know, Steph Curry's jersey or whatever it is, and they, you know, Like, that's great for building a fabric between the two countries.

We both enjoy the same thing. If they love Tom Cruise movies, great. But if an American has to bend the knee, like they ask Daryl Morey to do? When we literally edit Taiwan out of movies or out of posters. Yeah, that's ridiculous. So that's where you have to like hold the line, I think. And this, I think, is a hold the line.

You can't hold the line on everything or else it's just going to be some things you have to negotiate, it's something you have to hold the line. I think India has done a pretty good job with it. You know, they're holding the line on the app being there, but I'm sure they do plenty of trade with China as well. Yeah. So I think this is one of those situations where we absolutely must hold the line.

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datasets fast execution and accurate measurement across every KPI. And AdQuick is a global player in the ad space. They're active in 19 countries. So go to adquick.com slash twist and mention Twist to get $1,000 off your first campaign. How generous is that. Thanks to our friends at adquick.com slash twist. Terms and conditions do apply. Speaking of Amazon but also leaks.

Yeah. Leaked one of Amazon's leaked memos from 2021 and this is just fascinating, said that the company could was actually in danger of running out of people to hire in U.S. warehouses by 2024. The report, according to Vox's recode, warned that Amazon's labor crisis was especially imminent in locales like Phoenix, the inland empire region of California and Los Angeles, and that they could literally not have enough people to hire to staff their huge warehouses. Makes absolute sense to me. Americans are doing better than ever in terms of their ability to spend on this kind of stuff. They become

addicted to it. And yeah, I mean, there are people who work at Amazon and then are going home and buying from Amazon. It's just such a delightful experience to get whatever you want, whenever you want. I now have like a new philosophy of stuff, which is like I can just order like when something breaks or whatever. I'm just like, I can just order that and have it here the same day or the next day. It's totally changed my behavior. What same day delivery or next day delivery has done? The whole concept of two day delivery is like, two days? I'm outraged when I'm in Tahoe and it takes two days or three days. I'm like, what? I need a new pair of socks and you're saying I have to wait two days? I need new socks.

I got them the same day. I was like, I need new socks for a mountain biking. The same day the socks came. I was like, this is getting weird, you know? It is. Well, and it's, I guess, I mean, it's interesting because on the one hand, it's a labor story like, oh, no, we don't have enough people to hire. But the truth is that what we don't have is enough people to staff a complete sea change in consumer expectation. Right? Yeah, that's actually the way to eloquently said, yes. Because if we've changed the entire way that this is not how commerce has ever operated. No. And apparently, it's massively labor intensive.

And there just are not enough warm bodies. I mean, let's be honest. How many boxes? How many Amazon orders a week are you doing in your household? Like between 5 and 10 depending on the week? Right. I mean, there's some, it's got to be over 10 for us.

Yeah. It's got to be 10 for us. You know, we have three kids here. So, no. So, I mean,

it's 10 for us. You know, you just extrapolate that. Yeah. You know, some weeks it might be 3 or 4, but, you know,

five to 10. Everything comes by Amazon now. Like you said, subscribe and save for your favorite coffee or whatever your shampoo, whatever your jam is. Shampoo, all of it. All of it's unsubscribe.

It's, stuff is just constantly coming. It's coming so fast now that I am actually doing the Amazon day so that I get fewer boxes. Because now the amount of boxes and the act of opening boxes, which used to be a joyful moment in people's lives, has now become the thing that's annoying. We are so entitled that breaking down boxes has become the annoying thing.

I literally have, here it is, I literally have this on my desk. This is like the ceramic. It's a ceramic box opener. Oh, that's fancy. It's awesome. And it's like, again, you can order on Amazon for like six bucks. But this thing, you know why I have this?

Because we get so many goddamn boxes in this house. It has to stay right there. That it fills the recycle box. So now I break down the boxes. So I sit there like I'm working at Walmart or, you know, Trader Joe's and I'm a clerk. and I spend, you know, one day a week breaking down boxes because there's other people who live in my house

who take the boxes and throw them in to the recycle, which means four boxes and it's full. They don't break them down? They don't break them down. You can't do that. I'm the breakdown guy.

I'm the breakdown guy. I'm training people. I bought like three, I bought a three pack of these and I put them in strategic location because they'll hang like on a hook. We, I mean,

those are amazing and I should totally get that and that's a much more humane thing than we have because we have these little like carambit things that we call the claw. which are these insane curved knives. Are you nuts? Look at that thing. Oh my God.

My son went through this little like CS Go phase. That looks like a raptor claw. We've got like three of those. They're perfect for opening boxes. That's how many claws a raptor has per hand. It's three. Well, listen, you know, like I like my stuff to be multi-purpose. So I like to know that I can kill an intruder.

Yeah, it is actually that would. And we should do. You know, we're basically getting to the point where everybody's going to have a miniature raptor. You know, these miniature ponies and. miniature bulldogs, miniature, whatever, dogs, we should just use DNA sequencing to make mini raptors. And then you just take your mini raptor and you throw it into your recycling and it just shreds

the boxes for you. And then you feed it. Right. That would be amazing. But could I use that on an intruder. That's my question. Yes. A raptor would be great for intruders.

I need a robot raptor and Amazon needs more robots because this is so interesting. Like now that we're kind of breaking this down to its component parts and realizing that the problem is that we've created an economy that there aren't enough human systems. staff. This is not a shortage. This is an existence problem. Not enough labor exists possibly to fuel this economy. And so then what is the question? Is it open the doors and allow immigration again or robots or both? Yeah, this is the problem with immigration is I've talked about this so many times. Like people don't even know how many people come into the country by year. And so we you know it has really dropped um i i think we admitted just like just over a million the last couple

years and it was two or three million uh you know um but yeah it just keeps going down so yeah it's pretty crazy um how many people how few people we let in that's one solution is to let more people in the other solution's automation obviously and they've they have a lot of um automation going on there the last mile obviously is a big one so drones are going to help that We talked about we live in the future, the pneumatic tubes kind of concept, you know, cities, the tubes. Very cool. And then those little robots that look like R2D2 that will just go five miles an hour to your house, those are going to be helpful. Autonomy, full autonomous cars and delivery.

That's all coming. So this does seem like a bridge issue. Anybody who has these jobs is not going to have them in 10 years. So this is a short-term pain problem. And here's a solution. charge more, pay more. It's true, because everything we've just said about how we're living in all of this delivery is terrible.

It's actually consumerism run amok. It's the reason that the supply chains are so screwed up because we cannot stop buying stuff. And it is an addiction. It is horrific in terms of carbon emissions. It's terrible for the environment. It's terrible. I literally am on a jihad to stop my own consumption

and like literally metal straws, major part of it. Like, like, I got my little silicon ones. I like them, because they don't make as much nice. And then I'm making ice tea. I'm making the chicory coffee cold brew and I'm doing liquid IV instead of buying bottles of, you know, whatever Gatorade or, you know, Gatorade ice I used to buy. Now I'd use a liquid IV.

He's a promo code twist. I'm trying to integrate, yeah, he's a promo code twist. I'm trying to integrate very like zero waste and less waste strategies into my life. It is a hard transition. Well, here's the thing I would, one pump up. I don't know if liquid IV does this. But now this is the same addiction. Humans are very addicted. Do you notice that, Molly? Like we get addicted to things. Yes. We have like a very weird addiction thing where like we have habits and we get into patterns and they're like repetitive. So I think what's happening is we've gotten into this loop with Amazon where we just keep ordering and ordering and ordering and it releases dopamine and we're just like in this habit. Then the reverse habit happens where you are like, okay, I'm going to try to not order stuff. So everything I'm doing now is trying to find the one pan that I will never have to replace again, or the boots. I talked about my

Danor boots or my Crocket and Jones shoes from London. They're $800 shoes. I've had them for now 10 years. I get them resold every four. And the leather is so good that when you polish it up, I mean, I'm still wearing the same awesome shoes for almost 10 years now. I'm in shock. And they're still my favorite shoes. I mean, I was going through dress shoes like crazy when I was buying the cheaper ones. And this $800 pair, they're still rocking it. So now I started looking at the packets that the liquid IV comes in, which is super convenient. I was like, I wonder if they offer like a mason jar, glass jar filled with this powder. So I could have three of those and just do a scooper. I'm totally fine with doing a scuba. I don't need a single pack. I mean, I do need a single

packet when I'm traveling, which is fine. But I'm just going full on no packaging, please. and we have that company we're working on, which we should have them on, that's in the incubator, should have them on to talk about what they're doing at some point. Have they been on the pod yet? We did, yeah.

Oh, you interviewed them right? Yeah, she's been on. What's the state of that company? Are they ready to launch something? Spring, I think so, yeah. They're a pilot in D.C. Got it. Yeah.

Can't be for that. I think they're ready to. I just want that to exist so badly. Because it is very, I like, firmly believe that consumers will change behavior if they have a cool thing to buy. Tesla has proven that.

Apple has proven, right? Like we've seen, beyond meat, impossible burgers, all of those have proven that. But you have to have the thing. Like, to ask any individual to go to the store

and buy everything in bulk and put it in glass jars themselves and bring them and do the, it's just not credible. But to offer them that as a service, hell yeah. We're addicted to that. We will definitely subscribe to that.

And then there's the habit. And so how can you make the habit? I'm really getting into habits now. and you know you just have to put your if you can really work this loop in your favor so like I'm doing that with my schedule where I'm time blocking stuff or I'm trying to get on the treadmill listen to the stories for today's show

while I'm on the treadmill in the morning you see that when I'm going back forward just trying to get more into that loop which I did with skiing this year where I was like okay these four days a week I'm going to ski during this window move my meaning says if you can get yourself in that loop I guess there's like all these books about habit that talk about this where you just schedule it

And then just some amount of days, right? It's like 21 days. Yeah, there's something where you do something for 21 days. It'll be a habit. Yeah. So anyway, I think it's one of the things we have to think about with these companies and getting into a habit. The other thing I'm thinking about is when do I replace my cars? So I replace my cars when I like the new features and I want them.

So it's not actually my choice. Yeah. It's kind of when somebody put dangles enough out there. And I'm like, okay, I've now had the one. Y for a while, had the X for a while, six, seven years for the X, I think, and then the Y I've had for two or three years. And I'm like, I'm going to get the new one. I'm going to get the plaid. I'm going to get this. And I'm like,

should I do that or not for the environment? Should I try to get to 10 years? Should I try to and I was at one point in my life. I was like, I'm just never going to, I'm going to get a new car every three years and somebody else can drive my three-year-old car with 20,000 miles on it and, you know, just be like a luxury I could have. Now I'm just like, I don't know that I want that luxury as opposed to the joy, because I'm starting to feel joy by consuming less and getting more value out of things.

Isn't that weird? No, it's not. I think it's not at all. It's like that's, that is so profound because that's values changing. And when values change, behavior changes. And I feel the same way.

I'm like so proud of myself whenever I, like I'm very into, we were talking about this yesterday in our investment meeting, the circular economy and circularity. The idea of putting stuff into circulation for reuse. I do my rent the runway thing. I'm trying to buy used clothes, used furniture.

There's all these resale. like re-commerce is a huge consumer trend. And it's all about changing values. And it's awesome. There's really good shit out there that people aren't using anymore. It's amazing.

I'm now doing this, I bought this fancy mountain bike for my summer hobby. And, you know, it's a little embarrassing, but I spent $9,000 on an electric mountain bike. Yeah. I literally bought the best one.

Because here's what I thought. I'm like, yeah, that's kind of standard. Well, no, it was shocking to me. For really great bikes. Yeah, no great bikes are expensive. But I said to myself, I'm going to get the best one. I looked at the resale value.

I can resell this specialized by for like whatever. Call it six or seven K of the nine. So then I said, okay, if I can resell it for six, that means it's actually costing me three for the next two years or something like that. If I can do a hundred rides, it's 30 bucks a ride. I go to lunch, I spend 30 bucks. This is for my health and it's more exciting. I go skiing, you know, whatever.

And that I just divide the number, the cost by the number of times I use it and then I start, it reduces my anxiety of like a purchase like this. I'm actually thinking, I'm factoring consumption in to everything I do. Back of the envelope, math, that's your jam. That's kind of my jam. And so you can, you'd be surprised what you can justify

if you just say, hey, what's the resale value of these shoes? If I rescher, what's the recirculation thing? Recommerce and circularity. Circularity is the overall concept. Circularity is an amazing. amazing thing to me. If you just think about Amazon, do you ever buy used stuff on Amazon? I buy used books sometimes. I think I've bought used books a couple times on Amazon. But when I did part of the use, reducing my Amazon use is what makes me want to as as.

I did the books because they were out of print, I think, was the issue when I did that. Right. Totally. I've done that too. Not a big, okay. Well, anyway, if you have stories or ideas around these kind of startups or you're starting a startup or you find one that's doing this, Let us know, because we would like to invest in them. All right, tomorrow, Lon Harris is back on the show for our this week in streaming segment. Cannot believe it. The anticipation of Obi-Wan for two years and for a lifetime wondering what happened between episodes three and four has come to an end. And I've watched episode six, the finale of Obi-Wan.

I am so excited for you, Molly, to watch it. I'm watching it again tonight with my daughters. I can't wait. And Molly is going to tomorrow. I'll also interview the founder and CEO of Capital RX, which is trying to, like Mark Cuban's company, trying to reinvent and lower the cost of drugs.

Hallelujah. And then on Friday, we have another recurring guest that you're going to love, an awesome one. Just stay tuned for this, praying for exits. If you're not already following praying for exits on Instagram, you should be.

And of course, another OK boomer. Yes. And that's going to be a great interview. I actually had him on. He's, I think we figured out who he is, but we're not going to spoil it. He runs praying for exits on Instagram, a hilarious account where he kind of takes the piss out of our industry, but in a good way, in an entertaining way, it's not vindictive

or anything, but it's brutally candid. And so it's only the second person we've ever had on anonymously. And we're having them on a second time because if you take it from the perspective of, it's definitely an insider, maybe has an action. to grind, but it kind of has informed opinion. So if you go in with a low expectation, you find out the person's pretty well informed. I cannot wait for you to hear my solo, Dolo interview, Molly. We're going solo for the summer so Molly and I can get a little time out and forgive us, but we're doing six shows a week. Can we get a little time in the mountains? I'll be off praying for an exit

interviewing a founder that's hopefully going to become our next big. So, you know, praying for exits. Yeah. Is it what I did there? And then OK, boomer from Rachel tomorrow too. Always on Friday. And then if you have topics, you want us to cover and you want to be where the pre-show action happens during the Twist Community on Twitter at this week in startups.com slash T-C for Twitter community. Yeah, we've got 1,200 members in this community and we're going to start doing more there. We show up right around 3 or 4 o'clock every day to just peek in and say hi to everybody. You got questions for us.

I want to do a call-in show where people call in for advice and do mentoring. I want to do more mentoring. So Jason mentors. This is different than Ask Jason. It's a new concept I want to do with Jason mentor somebody. And here's my theory, my thesis, Molly. I mentor them. And then we check back in with them 30 days later, 60 days later, and see if they took them entry.

Kind of like, almost like a reality show, you know, where I get inside somebody's head. Give them some. Almost. Like that. Seems like there could be some potential there. Could be. All right. We'll see you all tomorrow.

Oh, by the way, the URL is this week in startups.com slash T.C. Twitter community. This week and startups.com slash T.C. It forged you. thank you for doing this everybody on my team to this Twitter community. It's got 1,200 members. But don't spam it. Talk about startups, talk about the show.

Stay focused. There's a bunch of mods in there. Thanks to our mods. Bob G. Surge Dog. So many great mods working with us on our, if you want to be a mod, just show up every day.

Zenprofit at YouTube.com slash this weekend. YouTube.com slash this weekend. Hit the subscribe. Hit the bell. You get an alert. I'm going to also do some random drops I decided. I have the YouTube password. So I may do some random drops

where I just talk to the audience over the weekend if a breaking history happens. So get ready to collect you. Yeah. I'm going to creative mode right now. You really are. I know. I love it.

I have ideas. I have ideas for new shows. I've got my creative juices flowing. The summer's doing it to me. He does not take summer off. Exactly. I don't take any time off because this is not a job for me. This is like talking to you for an hour.

I could talk to you for an hour every Saturday and Sunday and not put the cameras on. It's fun. It's true. It's true. See you all. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.